There comes a point before a trip when I feel scared that nothing is going to work. I wake in the night and riffle through possible catastrophes, (that’s a wonderful word in French….”cat-a-STROFF!”): we will forget something crucial, the reservations I’ve made will prove to be for the wrong day.

Actually once, we were coming home from seeing Hester and Len in New Zealand the year they lived there, and had not taken into account the date line. So we had a whole day, unexpected, on Oahu, and had a lovely time. We rented a car, drove out Kaneohe direction, found a motel, and even visited the place where canoe racers took off from.

Now we are under way! We boarded the train here in Portland Saturday afternoon. We will miss family, but we count on seeing them again in December. From here, we go to Chicago, then Washington, D.C., and then Ft. Lauderdale, from whence we sail Oct. 28 on Holland America’s MS Rotterdam for six weeks. Ports of Call include Athens, Corfu, Olympia, Livorno, Barcelona, Alicante, Cadiz, Palermo, Malaga, Casablanca and Gibraltar, not necessarily in that order. We sail back to Florida, arriving Dec. 9 and board the train back to Portland.

You can reach us by email at tomjoanbuell@gmail.com.

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